Us And One More
by xXBalorBabeXx
Summary: Life will turn surprising when it's least expected to. With a child on the way, Harper and Brayden promise to make the best life they can for their growing family... but will it go the way they intended it to? (AU from the February 1st 2018 episode of GH, OC x OC romance and no Jason/Sam or Drew/Sam pairing yet)
1. Our Life Is Here

_"I'm gonna laugh like hell when they shave your head right before they fry you for murder!"_

_Harper found herself in the lighthouse, the storm raging on outside… and her looking at a younger Scott as well as everyone else._

_Faison was stood right across from Scott, AJ sniping back at Jenny and Bill talking to Julia Barrett… and from what she remembered, Julia was Harlan's favorite whereas Brenda wasn't and that alone made her hate Harlan as she always believed that a parent should never favor one child over another._

_Harper wanted nothing more than to run to Bill and hug him again… but she knew that he and the others couldn't see her._

_"Dad, why did you fall in love with that selfish woman?" Harper whispered._

_"Now now, kiddo, Julia wasn't always selfish."_

_Harper turned around, her eyes widening to see Bill… and he was how she remembered him the night before he died._

_"What, you think the living are the only ones who have dreams they can walk around in?" Bill asked with a slight smile before they hugged._

_"Daddy…" Harper responded quietly as tears trailed down her face, Bill brushing them away after they let go._

_"Don't cry, Precious. I'm always around you in spirit… though if I were alive, I'd probably question your fiance's intentions but he's a good man, I can tell that you two love each other very much." Bill explained._

_"Sly tried to scare him off a few times." Harper responded._

_"Well you're Sly's only sibling, doesn't matter to him that you two don't share the same DNA. Blood doesn't make a family… love does." Bill replied._

_"Cookie? Cheeseball? Revolver? 10 to 20 in SingSing?" Younger Bill responded to Scott._

_"Just a cookie." Scott replied, carefully taking a cookie._

_"You know, for a man with a room full of… no thank you…" Julia responded, politely turning down a snack. "Potential killers, you're certainly the genial host." She finished._

_"Well why not? Most of these people have meant so much to me over the past period of time." Younger Bill responded before the doorbell rang and Finian walked to the door, opening it._

_"Commissioner." Finian greeted as Robert walked in._

_"Good evening, Finian. Chief Lewis." Robert responded before pulling his soaked coat off and setting it aside, immediately walking to the younger Bill. "I believe I'd like to get started." He replied before everyone sat down._

_"Why are we here when we already know what happened, Dad?" Harper questioned._

_"I don't know that answer any more than you do…" Bill responded before Harper heard AJ say "The only other one who knew about the affair was her youngest. Maybe the little street rat had thought she was gonna be given back to that adoption center if she told anyone."._

_"You cruel bastard!" Harper hissed angrily._

_"AJ wasn't always cruel, Harper. And maybe his opinion of you back then would've changed had he'd gotten to know you." Bill responded._

_"Yeah, true. The only one who's truly cruel is Faison. Downright sinister." Harper replied._

_The aforementioned man seemed to hear her, looking right at her._

_"I can't exactly fault you for saying that, Miss Eckert. I messed with a lot of lives just for the hell of it and that was before I met Anna. Maybe you should ask that kindhearted fiance of yours just how I treated his mother before she met his father… sweet Neaveh, she was never really the same afterwards." Faison responded, Harper feeling her blood boil._

_"It's all a game to you. Avoiding failure when true colors will bleed…" Harper replied as she heard the faint melody of Carnival Of Rust by Poets Of The Fall get louder…_

Harper jumped out of her sleep as Brayden was carefully taking the earbuds out of her ears, Brayden closing out Spotify and setting Harper's LG Aristo aside before lightly pulling her into a hug.

"You're okay, Darlin'. It's a hard habit to break, falling asleep while listening to music." Brayden replied softly before they kissed.

"It is." Harper responded before she looked outside of their loft apartment, the snow still falling… but given that it was early February in Port Charles, she didn't anticipate warmer weather for a while.

She brushed her shoulder length honey brown hair out of her face before she stood up… only to feel dizzy and Brayden catching her before getting her to lie back down on their bed.

"You rest, okay? I'll be right here." Brayden whispered, putting a blanket over Harper.

"Rest sounds good." Harper responded before they held each other.

They couldn't wrap their minds around Nathan being dead, that he'd never get to see his and Maxie's baby… and both of them hoped that Faison's body had been left for the state to deal with.

Harper eventually got up from the bed when she felt more rested, wandering into the restroom and closing the door behind her… and opening the medicine cabinet.

Picking up the unopened _First Response Early Result _test, Harper closed her eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath before opening the box and taking one of the tests out of it.

_'Okay, just relax. And find out the truth.' _Harper thought before opening the little packet, test now in her right hand.

She was anxious after taking the test, brushing a stray hair off of her leggings as she waited… and heard a knock at the door before she stood up and unlocked it, opening it.

Brayden was about to ask if Harper was okay and then saw the test on the countertop, taking her left hand into his right hand.

"Whatever happens, we handle this together. I promise." Brayden responded before they kissed.

Harper picked up the test after the timer went off… and her and Brayden smiling as tears ran down their faces, her right hand and his left one resting on her stomach as the two held each other.

"We're gonna give our little son or daughter a safe and happy life, Darlin'. Our baby will never have to be scared." Brayden responded before they kissed and held each other.

They knew that they'd have to be careful with how they'd reveal the news though.


	2. Through Life

_**A/N: Going in a slightly different direction here than in Waiting For The Night To Fall.**_

_**15 hours earlier…**_

_Faison looked to his right and was perplexed to see Harper._

_"I don't know why you're here but I'm disappointed. I thought he could manage a simple kill shot. But he kept me alive. Why?" Faison responded._

_"Oh believe it when I say this, I wish you were dead and I'm not the only one who would say that… I want to actually hear you say why you switched Jason for Drew." Harper replied._

_"I needed someone who's brain hadn't been injured badly…" Faison explained._

_"Why take the risk with Drew when you didn't know if he had suffered any life altering head injuries? I worked at a military base, they keep their records of every soldier locked up to where no one, not even a madman like you, can get to them." Harper replied._

_"What's in it for me?" Faison asked._

_"Oh, I'm not here to spare your life, not after all the havoc you've caused." Harper answered._

_"I know you won't kill me here, neither will your fiance or your brothers. There's too many witnesses, right?" Faison responded._

_"I really don't need to and neither do they… but I know something you don't want to acknowledge because you'd view yourself as weak. You're about 65 years old… with you suffering from Huntington's disease, how much longer do you think you really have realistically?" Harper replied, Faison turning livid._

_"You don't know me at all, you little bitch!" Faison hissed._

_"So you say… I know this as well, who Henrik really is. And if you somehow survive what happened tonight, maybe he'll kill you instead." Harper responded before she stood up and left._

_She and Brayden hugged and kissed when they saw each other._

_"Still freaked out?" Brayden asked._

_"Carly drives me crazy with her two faced attitude but I'm glad she's unharmed and still alive." Harper responded as they sat down on the couch in the waiting room, Brayden lightly rubbing her back. "Nothing yet about Nathan?" She asked._

_"Epiphany won't tell me much but telling anyone who's not family would be violating policy here." Brayden responded._

_"That's not gonna work on Dante when he storms in here, asking if his best friend is gonna survive being shot." Harper replied before they saw Anna and Jason walk over._

_"Hey, did you get anything out of Faison?" Anna asked._

_"He explained why he needed to replace Jason with Drew, I told him he took a risk in doing so because he switched them without even knowing if Drew had suffered any kind of traumatic brain injuries during the war." Harper replied._

_"Faison did take a blind risk. Anything else?" Jason responded._

_"Faison asked what was in it for him, the bastard had the audacity to think I was there to help him. If being shot doesn't kill him, Faison refusing treatment will and I know from just looking at him that he doesn't have much longer left." Harper explained._

_"What is he refusing treatment for?" Anna questioned._

_"Huntington's disease… Spinelli hacked into Faison's medical records earlier, that's how we found out that Faison was diagnosed at 48. Prognosis is anywhere from 15 to 20 years after being diagnosed. I watched my mother suffer through it and helped her as best as I could but she had to be in full time care in her last years alive." Brayden replied, Harper lightly rubbing his back as he brushed his tears away._

_Harper brushed off how she was feeling physically, not seeing it as important right now…_

**Present time…**

Harper hated having blood drawn but Kim didn't take long to do so, pressing a cotton ball to Harper's right arm and removing the needle after handing the vials to Elizabeth before bandaging Harper's arm.

"I know how you feel, Harper. I went through these appointments all three times and I hated having blood drawn." Elizabeth responded before the two hugged and Elizabeth left with the vials.

"We'll know soon enough. Now I need to know if any conditions run in both sides of the family." Kim replied.

"My mother had Huntington's disease. I was tested for that and luckily it was negative." Brayden explained.

"I had a congenital heart defect when I was a baby, it had to be corrected surgically." Harper responded.

"Well we can screen for a lot of genetic conditions nowadays thanks to modern medicine. Chorionic villus sampling can be done between the 10th and 13th weeks and an amniocentesis can be done between weeks 15 and 20. Once you have the results of either test, we can go from there." Kim replied. "But for now, Harper, how are you feeling?" She asked.

"Tired and achy, avoided eating bacon this morning and ate dry toast instead." Harper responded.

"Trust me, what you're feeling is normal." Kim replied before she got the results back. "So far, blood work shows no abnormalities. That's good." She responded before she got Harper to lie back on the examination bed.

Harper put her legs in the stirrups, Brayden holding her right hand and lightly kissing it as Kim had set up the ultrasound machine.

Harper felt slight pressure from the ultrasound wand… but it faded away when she and Brayden saw their baby on the monitor and heard its heartbeat.

And much like the new soon to be parents, Kim was smiling as the heartbeat echoed.

"Heartbeat is strong, baby's developing normally. Thirty-three more weeks to go until you're holding your little one." Kim responded.

After the ultrasound was over and they had pictures of it, Harper was back in her clothes and had gotten her prescription for prenatal vitamins filled after scheduling the next appointment… and Harper had taken a vitamin before closing the bottle, hearing her phone ring and seeing Jason's number on the screen before answering it.

_"Hey, where are you, kiddo?"_

"At GH. Look, there's a lot that needs to be explained, where are you?" Harper replied.

_"Aurora Media, Drew and Sam are here too."_

"Okay, we'll be over there soon." Harper responded before they hung up and she and Brayden headed to the elevator.

"Drew and Sam are looking for answers too." Brayden replied once the doors opened and the two were in the elevator before Harper lightly pressed the button leading to the parking garage and then pressed the button to close the doors.

"They won't have to for much longer. And honestly, I hope they throw Peter out of the building after they've fired him and after he's been punched a few times. He's caused enough chaos." Harper responded, her right hand resting on her stomach and Brayden's left hand resting below her right hand.

At Aurora Media, Jason turned to Drew and Sam.

"They're on their way here from the hospital. Said they need to explain why they were there but if I had to guess, it was to find out why Harper's not feeling well." Jason responded.

"Harper seemed okay yesterday." Drew replied.

"She was avoiding coffee yesterday when I talked to her and didn't seem interested in eating the omelette but forced herself to… I've been through that before so no stressing her out." Sam responded, Drew and Jason realising what she meant.

And they knew they had to try their best to keep from fighting.


End file.
